Wine Tasting And Time - There's Never Enough Of Each

We rush everywhere we go.  We rush to and from work.  We rush through our work and our lives.  What we need to do is take time to stop and enjoy and really taste.  An after-work glass of wine goes way too fast, especially when enjoyed with friends.

So, how do we slow things down when we can't leave work at work and the demands of family make it more and more difficult to shut down the transactional part of our brains?  Smartphones are going off while dinner is being prepared and the wine is being poured.

We would like to say we are able to rise above all that and put time and attention towards tasting wine but that would be a lie.  Just like everyone else when it comes to taking time to truly enjoy the wine tasting process, the interruptions and distractions pile on.  That said, we have tried to take this blogging thing seriously and truly put our best and most attentive foot forward when it comes to reviewing wines.  There is a Slow Food Movement and it seems there is a Slow Wine Movement though it looks to relate as much to the type of wine as it does the pace of the consumption.  There are definitely some great tricks when it comes to focusing on tasting wine.

Here are just a few:

1) Music - whether you like Jazz or Soul or Heavy Metal (we prefer Jazz) some soft background music tends to make the mood a little a more serene (sans the Metallica in our case).  This helps slow things down and takes the potential for distractions down when the room is silent.

2) No technology (well in our case some very specific technology) - pre-blog days we use to write out our reviews on paper.  Just ask our friends how often they had to sit through us jotting down notes on the wines we were having with dinner.  God bless their patience.  Now that we have the blog we use our blogging tools to capture the essence of the reviews but that is it.  Shannon hates Smartphones in general so there is little chance they enter the room (though they have snuck in on occasion).

3) Good lighting - not bright lighting but good lighting.  Bright enough to allow for a great view into the wine but not so bright to feel like you are staring at the sun through the glass.  Call it mood lighting but it should just enough to get the wine's true colours.

So, the next time you are enjoying a nice bottle of wine, don't drink it with the intent to down it so you can catch the rest of the game or head out to the movies.  Slow down, savour it, give the wine its due as well as yourself.

Any particular ways you slow down to enjoy your wine?  Let us know.

Keep on tasting!

Chris & Shannon